by David Zizmor

ALAMEDA–The Oakland Raiders looked a lot better in last Friday’s game against the Detroit Lions in the the 27-26 close shave win at the Oakland Coliseum. The Raiders had a little bit of a wobble earlier on when quarterback Matt Schaub threw an interception. You don’t have to worry about that with Schaub remember last season Schaub he had six interceptions returned for touchdowns it just became one of the things that snowballed.

Schaub last season just lost his confidence because the interceptions kept coming while interceptions are bad the quarterback surely has something to do with it there’s also a bit of luck involved in it. Sometimes Schaub throws an interception it’s just weird tips, sometimes it’s from receivers running the wrong routes there were a lot of different things coming.

That really ruined Schaub’s season last year, if you see similar interceptions again you can pause, you don’t want to see it, you don’t want to see it coming. Schaub threw that early interception he recovered he came back and played pretty well and he played a couple more series and that’s all he played. Then quarterback Derek Carr came in and he look really good until he got knocked out of the game with a rib injury.

Some of the reporters and players were saying based on what they have seen from Carr and several of his series and a couple of his scoring series, Carr could be the quarterback by the middle of the season. I don’t know about that, that’s anybody’s guess and it all depends on how everyone plays. The Raiders picked Carr with the idea that he would compete for that starting job at some point and the earlier the better.

Traffic still about the same for the 49ers at Levis Stadium: The San Jose Earthquakes earlier this month had a regulation game against the Seattle Sounders at Levis Stadium and it was a test on what it would be like with a lot less fans attending an event at Levis then when the 49ers opened up Levis on Sunday against the Denver Broncos. Fans waited and waited for hours to get in and out of Levis for that match and VTA had lines that lasted one and half hours long.

Traffic again was tied up getting to the park, some fans arrived as early as 6:30 AM to line up for parking, at this stage the city of Santa Clara and the 49ers are working out the kinks and it’s hopeful by the regular season on September 14th the 49ers have it all worked out or most it. Expect this season to be a whole work in progress getting people in and out of that stadium.

As we all know Candlestick Park ran for more than 50 years and they never figured how to get people in there and you hope that’s not the problem with Levis. It’s going to be tough, at this point in the year August, Great America is still open so that the Great America parking lot is off of the table as far as parking options are concerned.

Once Great America closes in September those parking lots will open up for the fans and getting in and out will become a lot more easier just because of the size of those lots and the fact that their already set up for big crowds that should help. Part of the problem you have tens of thousands of people coming in and without that Great America parking lot they flow out on all these other side streets and company lots in the neighboring areas.

It’s just a mess, once Great America is closed that parking lot becomes fair game and that should be easier and they definitely have to work out the issues with the VTA because that’s the big connector to Caltrain. The best option is to figure your public transportation to get to the ball park and go from there. The VTA had it’s issues during the Earthquakes match and part of it was people were litterally crossing in front of the train. Let’s see how it goes for the home opener on September 14th.

David Zizmor does Raiders and 49ers commentary each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com